The company reported second quarter revenue of $1.1 billion, up 13 percent from a year ago. GAAP gross margin was 56.1 percent, setting a new record for the chipmaker. Revenue for the first half of the year was $2.21 billion, up from $1.93 billion last year.

Nvidia reports gains in datacentre, mobile and more

Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said the company had a "great quarter" with strong gains in gaming, datacentre and cloud segments, along with mobile.

The company also saw accelerated growth in automotive. BMW uses the Tegra in the i8 and i3, while Volkswagen has infotainment systems based on Tegra in the Golf and upcoming Passat. Nvidia saw 70 percent year-on-year growth in automotive.

"Our Tesla datacenter business is in high gear, benefiting from strong demand from cloud service providers, and our new SHIELD tablet is generating considerable excitement." NVIDIA's accelerating growth stems directly from investments in extending our visual computing leadership to the mobile-cloud revolution," said Huang.

Nvidia's outlook for Q3 looks good, too. The company expects revenue of about $1.2 billion, plus or minus two percent. Margins are expected to end up north of 55 percent.

Optimism and hype in conference call

The earnings call was market by a healthy dose of optimism bordering on hype. Nvidia execs talked up the new Tegra K1 and the Shield Tablet. Nvidia pointed out that about 90 percent of Google Play revenue is generated by gaming, hence there is a market for gaming tablets and Android consoles. Overall, Tegra shipments were up 200 percent from a year ago.

"Tegra K1 also runs many other desktop-class engines including Source, Unity, CryEngine and id Tech. Supporting these game engines makes it much easier for developers to bring games to Android on Tegra K1," the company argues.

GRID and Tesla sales were good, too. Adobe's use of GPU acceleration was also mentioned as a positive factor, as it opens up new markets for Quadro products.

Huang also pointed out that Nvidia now has more ways to engage custmers in IP licensing. He expects licensing to remain an important part of Nvidia's income in the future. The company traditionally licensed technology to PC companies, but now it is licensing to mobile and cloud companies, Huang pointed out.